The Letter People

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The Letter People is a children's literacy program. The term also refers to the family of various characters depicted in it.

Elayne Reiss-Weimann and Rita Friedman, two teachers from George Miller Elementary in Nanuet, New York, created the concept of Letter People.^[1] In 1964, first-grade teacher Reiss-Weimann formed the original idea for the Letter People. She had struggled daily to draw the attention of her 24 students (who were typical first-graders, eager and rambunctious) in a distraction-fond hallway classroom at the overcrowded school. Weimann collaborated with an early childhood coordinator, Rita Friedman, to create an educational program that revolved around 26 anthropomorphic characters, each representing a letter of the alphabet, to teach beginning readers how to "decode" or "sound out" the consonants and vowels that form words. They embodied the basic rules of phonics into stories about this clan of make-believe pictograms called the Letter People.

Each letter of the alphabet had a distinct characteristic to help children learn not only the letter but the sound the letter represents in the written word. For example, Mister M has a munching mouth, Mister N has a noisy nose and Mister T has tall teeth. The characters were painted on large, two-dimensional portrait cards. Each character was given an engaging personality to help the teacher bring her or him alive in the classroom, and each character had a song (or a poem at the time) to help children recall the distinguishing feature and sound. With the help of the Letter People, children remained on-task, learned more quickly, and retained what they learned. From the beginning, the children viewed the Letter People like real people and not just letters of the alphabet, phonics devices, or toys. On one occasion, when the Letter People had to be shipped to another school, the children insisted that holes would be placed in the boxes so that the Letter People could breathe as they traveled.^[2]

Weimann and Friedman later sold the idea to New Dimensions in Education, Inc. (based in Plainview, New York, and later in Norwalk, Connecticut) which, in turn, copyrighted and published The Letter People educational products in 1968.^[3] NDE developed the concept into classroom programs: Alpha One in 1968,^[4] and Alpha Time in 1972.^[5]

Both program's basic concept was simple: Each letter of the English alphabet was represented by a unique character with traits derived from itself. The consonants were males (as the Letter Boys) and the vowels were females (as the Letter Girls, whom there could be no word without). Reiss-Weimann and Friedman also wrote two series of books about the characters, Read-to-Me (1972–1978) and Fables from the Letter People (1988–1989). Liz Callen illustrated all the books of the latter series. Each Letter Person also had an accompanying song (available on cassette, eight track, and vinyl record), and inflatable vinyl effigies in two sizes 12 to 14 in (300 to 360 mm) or 30 in (760 mm)^[6] a.k.a. "life-size") known as "Huggables". Other merchandise included filmstrips, flash cards, giant picture cards, board games, puzzles, other educational vinyl records, and coloring sheets.^[7] Educators who adopted the program were trained in its implementation, and The Letter People was soon picked up by over 37,000^[8] schools across the US.

Alpha One, also known as Alpha One: Breaking the Code, was a first and second grade program introduced in 1968, and revised in 1974,^[9] that was designed to teach children to read and write sentences containing words containing three syllables in length and to develop within the child a sense of his own success and fun in learning to read by using the Letter People characters.^[10] Alpha One's game-like approach capitalized upon the child's sense of fun and imagination to develop interest in learning to read and spell. Learning letter symbols and sounds, mastering rules of word formation, and reading and writing are byproducts of the interaction between the child and his 26 "Letter People" friends, his participation in creative and dramatic play, his enjoyment of activities associated with specially developed filmstrips and recorded stories and rhymes, and his programmed success in a variety of visual and auditory discrimination "Letter People" games. This program is the precursor to the Alpha Time program.^[11]

Nearly all of the following materials have been described in conjunction with explaining the games and activities used during Alpha One lessons. In addition, teachers could also buy more materials through the NDE catalog along with the base program. The contents of the base Alpha One Kit are listed below with little additional explanation:

• Letter People and Symbol Cards: 26 sturdy placards (14” x 16”) each displaying a large cartoon of a Letter Person; 4 Symbol Charts to help decode words.
• Story Pictures and Easel: 26 scenes illustrated on 19" x 24” placards; the easel is designed to hole' both Story Pictures and Letter People.
• Letter Meeting Greeting Packets and Alphabet Sheets: Each packet contains a pad of 35 Greeting Cards for each of the 26 letters.
• Chatterbooks: 35 individual activity books for decoding, reading, and spelling words.^[12]
• Puppets and Stage: Scripts, in verse, are also provided.
• Chalkboards: 35 individual reusable slates to be used for decoding and spelling.
• Chatter Album: 12”, 33 1/3 rpm record which reinforces the learning of the vowel "sounds and some of the basic lessons in the program.^[13][14][15]
• Filmstrips: Humorous episodes that reinforce identification of letters with personified characteristics.
• Duplicating Masters: 50 tests to aid the teacher in evaluating student work, and assignments children take home to demonstrate progress to their parents.^[16]
• Professional Guide: A detailed step— by— step lesson plan for each learning unit.
• Alpha Wagon: A container which houses the above materials mounted on wheels for portability.

Alpha Time, also known as Alpha Time: Beginning Reading, was a kindergarten program introduced in 1972, and revised in 1976 and 1980 that was meant to help children develop oral communication; dramatic play; oral/aural discrimination; visual discrimination and letter identification; and social living through the use of the Letter People.^[17] In Alpha Time, kindergarteners were introduced to the child-sized vinyl characters commonly known as the Huggables",^[18] which were large enough for small children to hug (though there were smaller-sized Huggables as well), instead of the 2D picture cards used in the 1st and 2nd grade Alpha One program.^[2] Alpha Time was meant to be used before Alpha One to introduce children to basic concepts.

• 144 Picture Squares: These pictures belong to the Letter People whose sound is heard in the picture word. Activities involving these Picture Squares include the following skills: auditory discrimination, associating words with pictures, sorting, matching, classifying, counting, visual memory.
• 5 12" RPM Disc Recordings
• 27 Puzzles: These puzzles have interlocking pieces graduated from simple to advanced muscular coordination. The puzzles are a means of individually reinforcing the association of the Letter Person with his characteristic, (sound symbol), his letter, and a word that begins with his sound.^[21]
• 162 Duplicating Masters: These whimsically illustrated activity sheets serve as -reinforcement and evaluation of each day's learning: experience -which the children may take home. Each has a-note for the parent, 'thus serving as a liaison between school and home. Included are letters to parents describing the Alpha Time process.^[22]
• 6 Filmstrips: These colorful films may be used as a medium for group or individual activities to review the stories they depict, or as a basis for discussing color, shape, number, comparative sizes and location.
• Four "Read to Me" books: These are entertaining, vividly illustrated stories about four of the Letter People, which the teacher reads to the children, or which may be looked at while listening to the "read along" recording of the story ^{[23][24][25][26]}.
• 420 Picture Books (70 copies each of six different books): The topic of each of these eight page picture readers is exclusively drawn from the children's classroom experiences. No matter what a child's background, he can share in the comprehension of the Story as it unfolds.
• The Huggables (26 inflatable Letter People): Inflatable vinyl effigies in two sizes 12 to 14 in (300 to 360 mm) or 30 in (760 mm).
• 16 Giant Picture Cards: These cards depict familiar scenes in a child's life, or illustrate a story that has been told in class. It is the first step in picture reading. It draws on the child's personal experience for discussion and serves as a basis for role playing. (oral communication, identification from context clues, numeration, extracting the main idea).
• 2 Board Games: These colorful games are designed to be used in simple as well as more advanced activities. As more Letter People are introduced in the lesson the activities become more challenging. Skills which are reinforced in these games include: matching, sorting, classifying, relating picture to sound, visual, oral, aural sound discriminating, following directions, counting, visual memory. ^[27]
• 4 Decks of Playing Cards: Used alongside the 2 board games.
• 1 Professional Guide: The guide has an easy to follow step by step lesson plan for each day. It may be adapted for use with small or large groups. Each lesson has an "On Their Own" section which is a suggested list of activities related to the content of the lesson. "On Their Own" gives children the opportunity to choose individual activities for enrichment or reinforcement.^[19]

The original Letter People program faced significant criticism in the early 1970s for its gendered portrayal of the alphabet, with vowels depicted as female ("Miss A," "Miss E," etc.) and consonants as male ("Mister B," "Mister C," etc.). Feminist groups and educators objected to how female characters were often portrayed as weak, emotional, or dependent on male characters, while male characters were depicted as strong and active.^[28][29]

In 1972, Suffolk Women's Liberation, led by kindergarten teacher Lois Rodriguez, protested the program as "blatantly sexist," citing examples like a poem where a consonant declares, "A girl's no good for work or play."^[30] The group met with publisher Dr. Bernard Kauderer of New Dimensions in Education, who defended the program's emphasis on cooperation but acknowledged some content could be revised.^[31] The Suffolk County Human Rights Commission investigated the complaints, with commissioner W. Burghardt Turner questioning whether the program reinforced children's biases rather than challenging them.^[32]

While some educators and students defended the program - including first-graders who wrote letters pleading to keep their "letter people"^[32] - critics like educator Thelma Taub argued that "reading can be fun without the stereotypes."^[33] In response to the criticism, publisher Ruth Lerner agreed to modify some content, such as reducing the number of crying female vowels, but maintained the gendered structure was essential to the program.^[34]Additionally, some vowel characters who received particularly pointed criticism, including Miss I (originally "Itchy Itch") and Miss O (originally "Obstinate"), were later revised to become the "Incredible Inventor" and "Optimistic Optimist" respectively after the television series' run.

lan J. Pratt, Ph.D., a director and vice-president of NDE, Inc. approached KETC-TV, a PBS affiliate in St. Louis, Missouri, about creating a TV series based on the escapades of the Letter People. After five pilot programs were produced, Dr. Pratt approached the Council of Great City Schools (the 20 largest school districts in the US). Eventually, with the cooperation of the superintendents of the Council, NDE, and KETC-TV, a joint venture commenced. The series was originally planned to comprise 160 15-minute episodes, but only 60 were produced.^[35] Despite this, it became extremely popular nationwide among children who were learning to read. To ensure phonetic and linguistic accuracy in the television production process, Ruth Lerner from NDE served as the Editorial Supervisor.^[34] Pratt was the Curriculum Consultant for the TV series. Tom McDonough of KETC-TV was the series' writer-director. While thousands of children were learning about the Letter People in school, thousands of others were being exposed to them through the television series based on the program. The show was extremely popular with children, and it quickly spread to over 105 other television stations across the country, via syndication, mainly to PBS and educational stations. The television series premiered on March 12, 1974.

The Letter People (relatively primitive puppets) undertake various adventures in Letter People Land, a dark, featureless place populated by strange people and creatures. Episodes usually focus on introducing new Letter People or new sounds formed by combining two Letter People together (such as /CH/ or /OU/). Other episodes take the Letter People to more exotic (though still featureless) locales such as outer space (eventually, the show would include more standard scenery, like cityscapes, meadows, Miss O's opera house, etc.), while a few highlight the characters' conflicts over various sounds (such as Mister C fighting Mister K for his sound). Another common feature of the show is the Catching Game, which is a game show hosted by Monty Swell (who is a character based on Monty Hall) where the Letter People must form words by positioning themselves correctly side-by-side.

A little dog is minding his own business when various figures (including a female figure carrying a bunch of helium balloons) enter the gates of Letter People Land as the song plays:

Come and meet the Letter People

Come and visit the family

Words are made of Letter People

A, B, C, D, follow me

The show continued to air reruns on PBS stations until late 1994.^[37] NDE released the show's episodes on a 5-tape VHS set of Letter People "Learning Advantage Videos" as part of the Letter People curriculum in 1995;^[38] on the other hand, fans have preserved the episodes on many VHS recordings taped off of TV while the show was still on the air, and various DVDs having the episodes preserved can be found from time to time on auction sites such as eBay. The entire series has been preserved online.^[39]

In 1990, Abrams & Co. Publishers Inc. (founded in 1989) of Austin, Texas, bought the rights to The Letter People from the previous owner, Norwalk, Connecticut-based New Dimensions in Education, Inc. At first, the company slightly revised the program, such as adding lowercase letters to the back of each Letter Person (previously they had been placed on each character somewhat randomly), but in 1996, they gave the program a major update, completely redesigning the look of the characters (however, some Letter People keep half of their designs from their original counterparts) and the associated materials, and also made sweeping changes to many of the Letter People, especially over half of their genders themselves, most obviously equalizing the proportion of male to female characters (vowels are now distinguished by their ability to light up via "LetterLights", which appear as yellow suns on their right shoulders). The male characters' names changed from "Mister" to "Mr.", and the female characters' names changed from "Miss" to "Ms.". Most of the characters' associated characteristics were changed as well, such as all references to "junk food" being swapped for non-food-related characteristics (Mr. D's "delicious donuts" were exchanged for "dazzling dance", for example) and any Letter Person that Abrams deemed as expressing negative images being changed to be more positive (Mr. H's horrible hair became happy hair instead, Mr. R's Ripping RubberBands became Rainbow Ribbons, and Mr. X was no longer all wrong and became different, albeit still mixed-up). AlphaKid A was used as the newer program's mascot.

New Letter People storybooks were written, many with simple rebus and decodable words. In 2002, a newer "Read-to-Me" book series was also written, with an eye toward teaching conflict resolution and problem-solving skills, and features a variety of genres including storybook, mystery, biography, poetry, and nonfiction.

The program is divided into three levels with increasing emphasis on phonics: Let's Begin with the Letter People for preschool, Land of the Letter People for kindergarten, and Lives of the Letter People for first grade. The program has been taught to about 35 million children.^[2]

Though the program is generally well received by educators, some have criticized its strong focus on phonics at the expense of other literacy-building techniques.

In 2008, after Abrams & Co. Publishers, Inc. was acquired by Learning Trends and merged into Abrams Learning Trends, The Letter People program, along with other Abrams & Co. Publishers properties, eventually became incorporated into the DIG Pre-K curriculum.

In the early 2010s, four new Letter People characters were added to the program in order to teach children Spanish.^[40] The four characters are Srta. Ch, Sr. Ll, Srta. Ñ and Sr. Rr.

In May 2019, Abrams Learning Trends, along with its properties including The Letter People characters, was acquired by Excelligence Learning Corporation and became incorporated into a subsidiary of Frog Street Press, thus causing Abrams Learning Trends to cease operations as an individual company.^[41] As of September 21, 2020, The Letter People had no more new content made but the franchise continued to be kept alive as a learning unit of the DIG Pre-K program, with the hand puppets, certain educational materials, a CD with the songs, and most of the big books of the Letter People (all only available for purchase as part of the DIG Pre-K program) having been available on Frog Street Enterprises' online store until early 2024. All discontinued material such as worksheets, flashcards, the Huggables, and other books of the Letter People are still available second-hand from time to time through other online stores such as eBay.

As of February 1, 2024, Frog Street Press discontinued the DIG Pre-K program, ending the life of the Letter People franchise due to low sales.

Along with the original program of The Letter People, its mathematics-equivalent program The Number Workers was also created. The Number Workers are referred to as the numerical cousins of the Letter People from a planet called "Number Workers World" and were created to help children learn not only about numbers, their sounds and how many there are in each number, but also symbols, mathematics, time, addition, and measurement. They range from numbers 1–9 with the odd numbers being males (as the Number Boys) and the even numbers being females (as the Number Girls). Each Number Person carries a number of objects to teach children how many there are to represent the number (such as Mister 1 having "only one of everything: a one-legged table, a one-legged chair, one microscope, one test tube and one clock with one hand"),^[42] and also represents the job they employ: Mister 1 as a scientist, Miss 2 as a doctor, Mister 3 as a pilot, Miss 4 as a construction worker, Mister 5 as a sports player, Miss 6 as a shape stacker, Mister 7 as an ice-cream salesman, Miss 8 as a photographer and Mister 9 as a magician. ( Note that the Number Workers are called "Number People" even though they are never referred to the Number People in the official program)

Unlike The Letter People, The Number Workers (and its later revamped version "The Number People") was lesser-known and had very few products, including an Alpha Math workbook (Number World Book), flashcards, giant picture cards, a teacher's guide, and a vinyl-containing accompanying songs for each Number Worker^[43].

When The Letter People program was revamped in 1996, The Number Workers program was also revamped along with it and was renamed "The Number People". This version features six males (Mr. 0, Mr. 2, Mr. 4, Mr. 5, Mr. 9, and Mr. 10) and five females (Miss 1, Miss 3, Miss 6, Miss 7, and Miss 8), with two new numbers introduced, which are 0 and 10. Each Number Person has the numeral placed to the top-right corner of his/her uniform, while a number word was also added to the back of each Number Person. A Spanish-language version was also available to teach the Spanish names of the numbers.^[44]

In the original 1968 program, the place where the Letter People live was originally a fictional town called "Letter People Land" but, when the program was revised in 1990, it was renamed the "Land of the Letter People". As the newly revised program in 1996 utilized the newer version of the characters and town structures, the name of the Letter People's residence still remained the same.

• Note: The characteristic of Miss I and Miss O changed shortly before The Letter People television series ended its run.
• Note: The characteristic of Mr. Q changed from "Quiet Questions" to just "Questions" to teach children that keeping your questions "quiet" will not answer them.

^Unknown illustrator

*illustrated by James Razzi

• Paul Evans – Mister F, Mister N, Mister S

• The May 30, 1970 issue of Billboard magazine has an article about the acquisition of American Artist Corp. by NDE.
• The March 29, 1971 issue of Time magazine has an article about NDE and the Letter People.
• The May 12, 1972 issue of Life magazine has a section about the Letter People called "The Huggables".

• In the 1974 film It's Alive, the "Huggables" are shown when Frank, the main character, visits the school.

• Excelligence Learning Corporation
• Ashley's Asylum: The Letter People!
• [1] at Bobopolis